Tim Blair: Climate Change Minister must admit real consequences of electric vehicle ‘revolution’
The Climate Change Minister plans to pull every market-warping, command-economy lever within reach in an attempt to shove you into an electric car, writes Tim Blair.
Opinion
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Thinking of buying a new car? Well, you’d best be quick about it, because shortly the type of car you buy is not going to be your decision.
Chris Bowen is going to make it for you.
The Climate Change and Energy Minister plans to pull every market-warping, command-economy lever within reach in an attempt to shove you into an electric car.
The problem is, as Labor sees it, that not enough of you want to own an EV. So Bowen is now talking about introducing fuel economy standards and tighter emission regulations for car manufacturers that will compel them to put more EVs in dealerships, and then in your garage.
Perversely, he frames this as expanding your “choice” of new car options.
“We would require, depending on the design elements, manufacturers to send a proportion of the cars that they send to Australia be affordable, low emissions vehicles. I think Australians deserve that choice,” Bowen said at an EV summit last week.
Bowen expanded on that theme in a Twitter video that showed him and Transport Minister Catherine King tooling around Parliament House at about 25km/h in an electric Hyundai.
“I reckon it’s about choice. It’s about making sure Australians have the choice of the cars that people get to choose in other countries,” he said. “At the moment, Australians are missing out on the choice of choosing an affordable EV.”
(For the record, here’s King’s Hyundai review: “It’s a terrific car.” She decided this after a few minutes in the passenger seat.)
The reason manufacturers are not already filling their dealerships with EVs is because the demand for them, at about two per cent of new car sales, simply isn’t big enough.
Australians overwhelmingly choose petrol and diesel vehicles. Bowen believes those choices are wrong. In the interests of expanding your choices, he’s therefore narrowing them.
He also believes we’re driving cars that are not acceptable in more civilised nations: “At the moment, frankly, I’m sorry to say Australia is a dumping ground for cars which would not be able to be sent to other countries.”
This is not the case. Every model of new car sold in Australia is made overseas and sold overseas. No manufacturer is building cars solely for us. We’re not a large enough market.
(Note: I sent emails and texts to Bowen’s office asking for a list of all the cars that are banned overseas and allowed to be sold in Australia. No reply.)
Bowen’s other great idea is to offer $5000 tax breaks to EV buyers. Joe Biden did the same thing in the US, to the tune of $7500. As you’d expect, Ford and Chevrolet immediately increased their EV prices by up to $8000.
Anyway, the teals don’t want us looking at the US. They’d prefer we seek EV and climate guidance elsewhere.
“We must keep up with the pace set by the Europeans,” North Sydney teal Kylea Tink demanded last week.
Very well, then.
Spain – which in recent years demolished almost all of its coal-fired power plants – now requires that all public buildings, shopping centres, cinemas, theatres, rail stations and airports limit heating to a peak of 19C and airconditioning to a low of 27C.
German Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck claimed last year that “by massively increasing renewable energy and accelerating the expansion of the electricity grid”, Germany would be able to close nuclear plants and still deliver reliable power.
Big mistake. Having thrown its lot in with renewables and at the same time become dependent on Russian gas, no longer available due to the Ukraine invasion, energy-starved Germany is now delaying planned nuclear closures and rebooting 16 coal-fired power generators.
In Italy, an ice-cream maker last week displayed on social media an electricity bill from July last year for about $2000 in Australian dollars.
His latest July bill? Try $7500 – and he actually used less power this year than in 2021.
In the Baltic states, a ten-minute hot shower will cost you, by one estimate, about $35.
“Power for delivery from 6pm to 7pm on Wednesday in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania jumped as high as 4000 euros [$5800] a megawatt-hour,” Bloomberg reported last week.
And don’t think you can avoid using electric lights by reverting to candles. The power price hikes are so severe that Estonia’s Hansa Candle AS, the largest candlemaker in Scandinavia and the Baltics, had to cease operations.
These are the renewables-loving nations that Tink says we must “keep pace with”.
They’re also nations with emissions and fuel economy rules that Bowen wants to duplicate.
“We know the problems,” Climate Chris said at that EV festival.
“Lack of charging infrastructure, range anxiety, high costs, long waiting times, lack of availability. While these are big challenges, there are solutions to each of them.”
Try solving just one: long waiting times for EV recharging. Tell us, Minister Bowen, how you’ll fix that.
Everybody will have plenty of time to listen, once we’re all stuck off the highway behind an EV taking an hour to recharge.
And behind two other EVs waiting for their hours.
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